


(You'll Never Be) A Notch In My Bedpost

by TheSightlessSniper



Category: Suits (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst with a Happy Ending, College AU, I Tried, M/M, Mentions of Sex, Misunderstandings, OOC, Out of Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 23:28:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17990543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSightlessSniper/pseuds/TheSightlessSniper
Summary: "It’s a startling awakening, and there’s a moment in the ache and the splendour where it becomes apparent that nothing will ever be the same again.When he awakes in the bed of the frat house, one of the other students—a distant acquaintance from high school—nudging him awake and handing him a coffee, Harvey is nowhere to be found."





	(You'll Never Be) A Notch In My Bedpost

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written anything for a while. I tried.

The thing about the first time is that it’s so full of meaning.

For Mike at least, it is. The first time means something more than just the mechanics of it, the insertion of A into B. Harvey’s body burns against his own, fingers smoothing up each vertebrae and dancing down his waist, stroking up his arms and raking gently down through sweat-dampened tousled locks. It’s a startling awakening, and there’s a moment in the ache and the splendour where it becomes apparent that nothing will ever be the same again.

When he awakes in the bed of the frat house, one of the other students—a distant acquaintance from high school—nudging him awake and handing him a coffee, Harvey is nowhere to be found.

 

He doesn’t quite know how he makes it to his first class of the day. He remembers none of it, and all of it; Mike’s memory retains the words, the information echoing from professor and colleagues into his ears, but the conversations he’s only dimly aware he’s surrounded by are a blur of mumbled words and poorly-struck notes. His mind is on last night, regret rolling over and over. How foolish, to give up his first time—his sexual awakening and his acknowledgement of something he’d known since childhood—to his friend’s older brother. The friendship he’d had with Marcus Specter hadn’t been as close as brothers as some might have assumed, but he had never judged him or spoken ill of him even after he had come out. And then there had been his brother…Prom king in high school, handsome college boy, straight-A student with full ride to Harvard Law waiting—what person wouldn’t have been begging on their knees to be between the sheets of Harvey Specter’s bed?

The sex had been spectacular. Fireworks. Explosions. Pure ecstasy.

And emotionally one-sided. Hollow. No wonder emptiness is all he’s been left with.

The next class is inessential, and he blows it off, heading straight back to his dorm. He doesn’t want the insincere sorority girls from last night asking why he’s crying in public.

 

There are exactly three occasions he passes Harvey in the week following.

The first is on his way to a class. Jenny and Rachel have been doing their damndest to distract him, keeping him away from alcohol—‘It’s not going to help, it’s a depressant, and that’s the last goddamn thing you need right now,’ Jenny had lectured—and stopping him from going near any places Harvey might be. Unfortunately class is necessary, and it’s on the way to one class he has forgotten as to what reason he signed up to it that he finally crosses paths with the unintentional one-night-stand.

Harvey’s laughing with his frat brothers, flipping one of them the bird, when their shoulders smash into one another and Harvey raises a hand in apology. ‘Sorry, man…’ The end of the sentence trails off, disappearing into the bustle of the students heading to class around them, but before Harvey can say anything else to him, Rachel is already whisking him away by the elbow, glaring back at Harvey over their shoulders and baring her teeth.

The second time is in the library, and this time neither of the girls are around for support. They literally crash into each other as they round the same set of shelves from opposite sides, and everything Mike has clutched in his arms cascades to the floor with a cacophony of thuds and claps of hardbacks against carpeted wood. He mumbles an apology to the librarian glaring at him, and sets about stacking up his selections again. Harvey says nothing, grabbing a few that went further, until there’s just one left.

It could be a scene from a teen movie; Mike’s hand touches the cover, and Harvey’s fingers slip between his at the same time, the contact electric and unexpected and drawing forth a craving just to be held in those arms again. He straightens up and steps back, book coming with him, and Harvey’s hand falls back to his side.

He doesn’t stick around to hear whatever Harvey seems to want to say. He’s not sure he wants to. The books are checked out, and he stuffs them into the depths of his backpack before heading straight to the nearest store; after that, he needs the support of peanut butter and salted caramel ice-cream, and a night in with Rachel, Jenny, and Harold.

The third time is in the club that Harvey first talked to him on that night. In all honesty, he hates the clubs around campus; sticky floors, overpriced drinks, and every cocktail on offer is a poorly-mixed sugar-crash hangover waiting to happen. He was only there that night in solidarity with Harold after the poor guy had been stood up (again). One good thing had come of that night at least; at least Harold had got some honest attention from a pretty girl from Mike’s psychology-101 class.

He’s not sure if losing his virginity to Harvey counts as a ‘good thing’ anymore, not when followed with waking up alone.

Harvey’s not in the swirl of bodies dancing, or even in the bathrooms looking after a drunk fraternity brother. He’s leaning at the side of the room, no drink to be seen, and seeming bored and lonely more than anything else.

Mike should turn tail, follow every instinct telling him to just leave the godforsaken place, rebound with the kind of attractive guy two doors down from his dorm room; never the same partner twice, and never a hook-up passing without the sounds of blissed-out wails of reached euphoria drifting from behind the thin door. Maybe he could be the panacea to the Harvey infatuation and—as Jenny had so eloquently and delicately put it—First-Fuck Syndrome, pound away the memory of Harvey between his thighs as if it never existed. His feet betray him, follow the thought and pull across to the middle of the human maelstrom as his petty side takes over. He grinds with whoever accepts the advance, moaning a little when someone’s hand—for the moment, he doesn’t care to whom it belongs—slips between his clothed thighs and cups his length, their own hips dragging up and down his buttocks and pressing heavy heat against the base of his spine. It’s all talk, no action; the person shifts away from him soon, and starts all over again with another body.

When the music changes, he comes to his senses and looks over to where Harvey had been stood, the space against the wall filled by a couple making out. Vaguely aroused, wholly unsatisfied, and feeling dirty in a way that doesn’t sit well with him, Mike heads home.

 

It’s odd dreading Marcus’s visit. They talk for a few hours online, catching up in a way that reminds him just how fun it is to hang out with him, and he invites him to crash in his dorm room for a few days while his roommate goes back home for a few days. It’s a pleasant change; four days of Derek not stealing his ramen and hogging the (very not-allowed) hotplate is more than a little welcome.

It’s only the day before, when Marcus lets him know he’s packed, that Mike remembers; hanging out with Marcus will mean hanging out with Harvey. ‘He said to drop in and see him, so we should all go out and get dinner!’

He contemplates all the ways he can get out of it, even the brutal version of ‘Your brother fucked me after a party then left me to wake up alone’ threatening to bubble out of his mouth when Marcus gets there, but he doesn’t have the heart to ruin any vague illusions that he might still have about his older brother not being a cliched, archetypal college dickwad.

Luck is on his side on the first night. Marcus is too exhausted to go anywhere from the long drive up, so they chill out with Harold, Rachel, and Jenny in his dorm room instead, watching teen slasher flicks until they pass out in the snack mess. Breakfast is the leftovers that haven’t gone stale yet, eaten gracelessly while they laze around in their clothes from the night before. Mike lounges against his headboard, cradling Rachel’s foot in his lap from where they fell asleep top-to-tail and sipping from his bottle of water. Jenny props herself up against the wall Mike’s bed is pressed up against and starts slurping down the last of a flat root beer through a twisty straw. Harold sits against the beside cabinet, quietly munching on a bag of Cheetos and messaging his new girlfriend. Thankfully, Marcus is the last one still asleep, leaving them time for discussion.

Rachel rolls over, leaning up on her elbows. ‘So, what are you going to do about Harvey if he asks?’ she whispers.

Hours of thinking and worrying and deliberating, and he honestly still couldn’t tell the best option. He could pretend he’s sick, or fake a late-night class; considering that at least one of the professors is a serial insomniac and holds classes into the early hours of the morning, it isn’t such a stretch that he’d be held up at Professor Gilbert’s midnight run of his class on behavioural psychology. He shrugs at her, sipping more water. ‘I don’t know. Probably run.’

Harold looks up from his phone. ‘Maybe you could talk to Harvey first.’

Rachel and Jenny both look at him as if his last marble has rolled away down the hills of San Francisco. Jenny shakes her head, blinking. ‘What.’

‘He could talk to Harvey. Tell him that it will be awkward and to give Marcus some excuse, like “I just want to catch up with my brother for a while” or “We don’t have anything in common”. Maybe it’ll stop him asking you along.’

It’s a fair point. But Harvey is the last person he wants to speak to one-on-one right now, and the concept is making him feel nauseous. Mike shakes his head. ‘I’ll just deal with the next few days as they happen.’

‘Just remember, if you need one of us for moral support—‘

‘I know, Harold, thanks.’ He smiles, spirits lifting. After the summer, when he, Harold, Jenny and Rachel were all in the same house together, he was going to take the money he’d saved from his summer job and buy the biggest TV he could afford for their living room as a thank-you for being there for him for so long.

 

On the last night of Marcus’s stay, he takes Mike and Harvey out for dinner.

Harvey’s already outside of the restaurant when they arrive, and Mike sees him swallow thickly as they approach, somehow devastating in a plain white v-neck, pale blue jeans and brown boots, half-folded jacket slung over one arm. He wishes so much that Harvey wasn’t as handsome as he is; the high-schooler in him falls victim to shallow infatuation all over again, and the playback of the night all those weeks ago loops again. The memories are cruelly vivid, vision flickering when Harvey pulled his t-shirt over his head and asked him if he’d done this before even though he’d probably know the answer, and when he’d shut his eyes as lips grazed the side of his throat and nipped at his collarbone, the world turning as he lay back on the bed and let him work him open. Despite the opportunity to break the law and drink himself into a stupor, he’d only had one or two, and a few scant sips of whatever had been in Rachel’s Dixie cup, as sober as could be when Harvey checked one last time before pressing inside. Each and every moan and gasp and whimper had spurred him on, and Harvey had stopped once, leaving him suspended, dangling at the very edge and letting him come down before building up to the crescendo again, coming back for a second wave and kissing him over and over. He can’t look Harvey in the eye as they’re seated, because all he can see is the last few moments before sleep took him, of Harvey looking at him as if he was something precious and valuable and everything…and the cold patch of air-exposed sheets as one of the other frat brothers woke him up to a cup of coffee and the unintended humiliation of realising he was alone.

Marcus speaks enough for the three of them, rambling on about something at his own college and oblivious to anything untoward having taken place. Mike laughs as he relays the story of when one of the sorority girls got groped by someone at a bar. ‘He had no idea she’s got a mean baseball swing, and she’s in the Boxing club—the look on his face when he hit the pool table and she’s lunging for him to throw him out…’ Marcus snorts and hiccups into his soda, waving one hand, ‘I have never seen a guy look so afraid of a hundred-and-twenty pound sister before, but goddamn I would pay to see that happen again.’

Harvey smirks, draining the contents of his glass—liquor, scotch—before responding. ‘Please tell me someone has it on video.’

‘Got uploaded to Youtube within the hour. I’ll show you after we’ve eaten.’

The food arrives. Marcus’s lasagne looks great, and Harvey’s steak with mushrooms and peppercorn sauce does make his mouth water, but Mike still thinks he’s got the best meal of the bunch; burger, avocado, egg, cheese, with a pickle wedged in slices in there as well, and rosemary-salted sweet potato fries on the side. He devours the salad that came with it in minutes, immediately moving onto the layered medley, moaning indecently when the flavours all meld together.

Distantly in the food haze, he hears Harvey gulp.

They stay long after finishing the meal. The waitress doesn’t seem to mind all that much, coming over to flirt shamelessly with both Specter brothers and blatantly ignoring him. Harvey jokes a little, flirts back, and gets a number scrawled onto the inside of his wrist with her pen. But as soon as she’s gone, Harvey dampens his thumb with some of the leftover ice from his glass and rubs away the marks made with the cheap ballpoint, erasing all evidence—save for a faint red rub mark—that a number had ever been there.

Marcus stares incredulously. ‘Dude, why? She was cute!’

Harvey shrugged, sighing as Marcus pressed further. ‘There’s someone I’m kind of interested in already.’

He really had moved on quick. Mike swallowed the last of his soda, hoping neither of them could see his eyes welling up in the dimmed lights.

Marcus made a gesture with his hands. ‘What, you aren’t going to tell me about her? Blonde, brunette, redhead? Or does she dye her hair cool colours? Japanese, Native American, Canadian, Spanish—‘

‘Jesus, let it drop.’

‘Is she as cute as the waitress?’

‘Marcus, just fucking let it go!’ At the tone, Mike blinks back up to look at them both. Harvey’s smile is long gone, expression taking on a harsh, stern edge he’d only ever seen back in high school when he had been truly pissed off. The eye contact he’d been avoiding all evening gets him in the space underneath his ribs, a sucker-punch layered with implication knocking the air out of his lungs.

Marcus notices none of it, turning back to finishing the last dregs of his drink before heading to the bar to pay the bill. Mike’s stares back into Harvey’s eyes, dimly registering the harsh expression receding back to that softness, the faint peripheral disturbance of teeth gnawing agitatedly at a lip. He makes the mistake of looking down, catching Harvey’s tongue anxiously wet the patch he’s just been chewing at, and sucks in a breath to replenish the one he lost just a little too deeply and accidentally inhales a few drops of his own saliva.

The tension immediately snaps. Harvey slips around the booth, hand going to his back to pat through the spluttering and coughing. It does little to ease his coughing, but when it does finally calm down, Harvey presses a glass of water into his hand. ‘You okay?’

He nods. ‘You’re lucky I didn’t puke.’

‘Mike—‘

From the countless bad romance movies forced on him by Rachel, the awful and seemingly endless soap operas that Jenny watches every single day and somehow still keeps decent grades, Mike knows that tone. ‘Harvey, it’s okay.’

‘No, it’s not. I had an ultra early class with Professor Gilbert. He’s a total insomniac and does weird class times, and this one started at six-AM, and it was the last chance to catch that mandatory class. You have…no idea how much I wanted to stay with you, but I would have failed psych, and I was already running late.’ Harvey shakes his head. ‘I didn’t have time to leave a note or tell someone to let you know, and goddamn it I regret it.’

‘…It was…you were my first.’

‘I know.’

‘I thought—‘

‘I know.’

Words fail him. The weeks he’s been ignoring him, believing he’d fucked him and run, and they could have been building something, anything, a bridge, a relationship. The suddenness of how quick he’d been to believe the worst crashes down on him, and out of nowhere, he snorts and laughs loud, burying his head into his sleeves and chuckling.

Marcus returns to the table, significantly paler than when he’d left. ‘Okay, so you’re buying the dinner next time, Harvey. I had no idea lasagne could be so expensive.’ He frowns. ‘What’s so funny?’

There’s no way that either of them can explain what transpired. Mike blinks to him, silently asking to be saved. 

Harvey obliges, shaking his head. ‘Mike just choked on his own spit and almost coughed up a lung.’

They drop off Harvey at his dorm first. Marcus gives him a typical manly hug, slapping him on the back a little as he goes. ‘I’ll see if I can come back in a month or so.’

‘Take care, dipshit.’ Harvey lets go of his brother, then turns to him. Mike steps into the embrace offered, feeling the difference to the one he just witnessed, how intimate it is in comparison as he’s tucked close to Harvey’s shoulder and feeling him breathe in. When he lets go—all too soon—Mike suddenly feels exhausted, the weight he’s been carrying for weeks releasing all at once.

For the first time in weeks, sleep comes easy.

 

The first class after Marcus has left is cancelled.

Mike chuckles as Harold pumps his fist in the air. Professor Farber was one of his least favourite professors; misogynistic, permanently rude to Rachel whenever she answered or disputed his teachings, and it would be a lie if he wasn’t a little bit satisfied that he would be out of commission for the rest of the month after breaking his leg in four places. ‘Thank god for shitty stairwell floors.’

Jenny slaps his arm. ‘You shouldn’t say that.’

‘At least we might get a teacher who doesn’t talk to the women like shit now. Maybe his T.A. will take over.’

‘Farber has a T.A.?’

‘Yeah. The Dean was sick of him being an asshole and wanted to piss him off, so he forced him into having a T.A. who knows the material better than he does.’ Harold slows, leading them into a cafe and waltzing up to the counter with his wallet in hand. ‘I’m buying. I think he was at the party a few weeks ago. Travis Tanner?’

‘Oh yeah…’ Jenny fades off, smiling. ‘Looked a little bit like a younger version of that guy from Without A Trace? Yeah, he’s cute.’

Mike rolls his eyes. ‘That’s not what we’re in class for.’

‘A girl can look at eye-candy if she wants. Anyway, he’ll be something good to stare at to forget about a certain frat boy.’

The mention of Harvey makes him forget what he wants to order. A nervous laugh escapes. ‘Actually, I think everything is okay in that respect.’

Rachel almost drops her caramel-laced cappuccino onto the floor. ‘What?’

‘What happened with dinner?’ Jenny stirs her matcha, staring.

Harold orders him a chai latte. ‘Yeah, you haven’t told us how it went yet.’

Mike shifts, fiddling with a wooden stirrer. ‘It went okay. I’ve kind of…been messaging him since I got up this morning.’

Rachel’s eyes turn to saucers. Jenny’s stirring hand stalls. Harold’s hand moves on autopilot, sliding his card towards the server while staring intently at Mike. ‘You’ve been messaging him?’

‘Yeah. Actually, we’re meeting up this evening to hang out at The Dark Room.’

‘The jazzy, bluesy place?’

Mike nods. ‘There’s a Tammy Terrell tribute night, and his friend Jessica is meant to be an amazing singer.’

‘So…is it a date?’ Jenny presses.

‘I…think so?’

Rachel shakes her head and waves them all over to a booth over by the window. ‘You’re going to have to roll back and explain exactly what happened last night.’

He regales the entire night—the awkward and the funny—in detail, elaborating on the feelings when Rachel begs to hear the romantic parts. All three of them swoon and flop onto the table at the description of the looks in Harvey’s eyes, and Harvey’s hug goodnight, and by the time he’s finished, the caffeine jitters are already setting in and Jenny’s foot is tapping of its own accord at a hundred miles an hour, bumping the bottom of the booth table rhythmically.

His watch buzzes, alerting him of his next class. ‘Shit, I have to go. If I don’t see you guys after I get back tonight, I’ll tell you everything tomorrow.’

‘You’d better!’ Harold calls. Mike smiles and flips him a middle finger, backing through the door of the cafe and back out onto the street. His watch buzzes again, a message coming through this time. _‘You want to get dinner before we go to The Dark Room tonight?’_

He scribbles the letters into the front of his watch, watching the words appear. _‘Sure—where?’_

_‘What do you want to eat?’_

_‘Could kill for a pizza.’_

_‘Giselle’s?’_

_‘God yes.’_

_‘I’ll meet you at six.’_ The grinning face emoji pops up four times underneath, and he snickers to himself, butterflies bubbling in his stomach. ‘You handsome dork.’

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed the fic.


End file.
